This was the situation in many places affected by the 1931 floods. At that point, any breach in a dyke can be calamitous. The quickest and easiest way to combat this is to raise the level of the dykes accordingly – but when this is done over and over again, the river bed moves higher year after year, until it’s not just the high water level that lies above the roofs of people’s houses, but the river bed itself. The silt they carry down from their higher reaches is gradually deposited along lower stretches – and this raises the level of the river bed, and in turn the high water level. The problem with engineering the landscape in this way is that it needs constant maintenance, which was not always carried out.īuilding dykes around a river forces it to maintain the same route, where naturally it would shift and drift, as they do in untouched lands. Forests had been felled, and the rivers tamed by an intricate system of dykes, allowing farmers to benefit from the way the floods fertilised the land, whilst – to an extent – preventing them from encroaching into the areas where they weren’t wanted. Much of it had originally been wetlands and marshes which, over the centuries, had been turned into paddy fields, villages and even cities. In this case, there was a fair amount of hubris involved in calling the land “theirs”. After all, people are only affected by floods when the waters encroach on “their” land and “their” homes. The second part is based on how people interact with the rivers. ![]() However, the meteorological causes of the flood are only one part of the story. With that much additional water flowing through the rivers, flooding is not surprising. The Yangtze basin would usually expect to be hit by two cyclonic storms in a year, but in July 1931 there were seven the equivalent of eighteen months’ rain fell in that one month alone. This happened practically every year, and those living along the rivers were accustomed to it, but this year it coincided with particularly heavy spring rain.Ĭome summer, China was hit by a powerful monsoon, which followed so closely upon the spring rain that it might as well have been one constant deluge. The meltwater raised the level of the rivers. ![]() Snow and ice built up in the mountainous regions where the rivers originate and, when spring arrived, naturally melted. ![]() It’s modern Chinese name, Chang Jiang, literally means “the Long River” from the Tibetan plateau, it flows 6,300 km – 3,900 miles- from west to east, ending at the East China Sea. The second longest river in China is the Yellow River, Huang He estimated to run 5,464 km (3,395 miles) and, like the Yangtze, flowing from west to east.About midway between the two, the Huai river runs a similar course, about 1,110 km (690 miles), currently meeting the Yangtze at Jiangdu.All of these rivers have been subject to frequent flooding the Yellow River has been called “China’s Great Sorrow” because of them.Īnd, in 1931, they all flooded at the same time.įrom 1928 to 1930, there had been a drought in China this was followed by a particularly cold and harsh winter. It’s the longest in Asia, and the longest in the world to be entirely contained within one country – China. ![]() The Yangtze is the third longest river in the world, behind only the Nile and the Amazon. Without them, we would not be here.īut the power of a river should never be underestimated, because as well as life, they can also bring death. Rivers are an essential source of life they fertilise the land around them, bring fresh water for us to drink and fish for us to catch and eat.
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